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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023

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Will AI bring back beauty?

Looking at midjourney's top pieces of art I am struck by the beauty in them. They contain detail, high degrees of realism even when depicting surrealist themes. They tend to be symmetrical and often portray idealized versions of reality. AI art tends to portray archetypal depicitions of its motifs and often excludes blemmishes, dirt and grime.

Compare it with corporate memphis a primarily human generated art form that has gained significant traction in the public space in the past decade. This is the most expensive painting painted by a living woman.

Compare the buildings drawn by the AI with the best exterior of 2022 in Sweden according to architects.

AI gives people what it gets positive feedback from. It gives people what they want. People want visually stunning rather than the output of the art community.

This art was already there, because Midjourney learned all that on human art. Corporations preferred to use corporate memphis because it's presumably cheaper and perhaps more brand-recognizable and shit. I'm afraid if AI-generated memphis remains cheaper than beautiful art, we're going to see a lot more AI-memphis than AI-beauty.

I was going to say the same thing. The same people who thought Corporate Memphis was a good idea will be the ones who determine the types of prompts that will go into an AI generator. If beauty wasn't their priority before, there's no reason why it will be now, and Corporate Midjourney will not be an improvement.